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<title>Dragon, Reborn by mattiebluebird (ScarlettBond)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883148">Dragon, Reborn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettBond/pseuds/mattiebluebird'>mattiebluebird (ScarlettBond)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Study, Deceit | Janus Sanders-centric, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, dragon!Deceit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:08:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23883148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettBond/pseuds/mattiebluebird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He called himself snake and they agreed, for once not questioning why they should take the word of a liar.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dragon, Reborn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Basically the "but how do we know for sure Deceit is a snake?" fic</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They called him Survival.</p><p>They called him that because that is what he called himself, what he felt deep in his core, what he <em>knew</em> was his purpose. He was the voice that told Thomas to hide the evidence of his wrongdoings, to blink innocently at his mother and claim he didn't do it, to remain alive and unscathed no matter the cost.</p><p>He found someone else, a small, quick, feral thing that called himself <em>Fear</em>, and he thought they were rather alike. The way Fear moved reminded Survival of himself, the way he thought, the way his heart sped but his voice remained steady as he worked. He thought for a while that the only difference between them was that Fear spoke when Thomas fell into a creek and Survival spoke when Thomas was asked why he was in the woods in the first place, but he soon learned how wrong he was.</p><p>Fear did not deal in lies or untruths; he dealt in <em>possibilities</em>, in exaggerations of existing anxieties, in panic and paranoia and adrenaline. They shared a common ground -building off of half-truths, working with doubt- but that was where it ended.</p><p>Fear preferred to work alone, anyway.</p><p>In his loneliness, Survival reached out to the others. They shunned him and called him <em>liar</em>, spat and whispered it. The negativity of it hurt almost as much as the truth of it. Survival was young, but he already knew there were two rules to lying: One, stick as close to the truth as possible, and two, let your audience see what they wanted to see.</p><p>His audience had decided what they wanted to see, so all he had left was the truth.</p><p>He named himself <em>Deceit</em> because he liked the word -it was fancy and less negative than liar, though it meant the same thing- and because, ironically, it was the only true thing about him.</p><p>Logic made no mistakes, but human logic -especially that of a child's- was flawed. It saw that a dragon had to be defeated by a prince whose smile was bright and charming, not wide and unsettling, and that's what it took for fact.</p><p>The King split into the Prince and the Duke, and Deceit became their dragon: Scales, fangs, claws, forked tongue and yellow eyes and all. He had no fire, but he still felt its heat pressing against his skin and tasted smoke in his mouth.</p><p>Sometimes he thought he felt the phantom beat of wings, but when he looked there was nothing.</p><p>Time and time again, the Prince defeated the dragon guarding the Duke's tower. Fear -now Anxiety, less sharp but no less cruel- treated him like a stranger. Again and again they called him worm, called him lizard, called him <em>snake</em> like it was a dirty word. It was untrue but they believed it, and that was all that mattered.</p><p><em>Let your audience see what they want to see</em>, he thought, and the fire in him sputtered, flickered, went out, leaving him as cold-blooded as they came. The taste of smoke dwindled and eventually died, and he ached for the weight of wings against his back, no matter how invisible. His claws stayed, so he hid them with gloves, hoping that if they went unseen he might be able to keep them.</p><p>He called himself snake and they agreed, for once not questioning why they should take the word of a liar.</p><p>Years later he would bare his claws to them, the villain to their hero, the dark to their light, and they would stare and stutter, "But you're a snake."</p><p>He would smile -all fang and flash of yellow iris- and say, "Yes, I am," and for the first time in years the half-truth would not fill him with regret for lost things.</p><p>For the first time in years, heat would curl beneath his skin, the taste of coal and ash and burned things would rise in the back of his throat, and -perhaps best of all- he'd feel wings flutter against his back.</p><p>They called him snake. Oh, how wrong they were.</p>
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